I used to be a subway ride away from just about any material showroom you can imagine. Once I moved my architecture firm to Fox Island WA, that all changed. Toss in the events of 2020, and you have a recipe for material sample disaster. Then came Material Bank, and my prayers were answered. Now I search online for materials and get them delivered the next day. Lost is the serendipity of finding things you wouldn’t pick from a photo on a screen, not to mention the personal touch of meeting with showroom managers, but I don’t miss the slog of commuting. And when I do go to a showroom or conference, it makes it all that much more special. Until then, it is Material Bank all day. Free for architects and interior designers. They are adding to the collection every day. I’ve found some awesome materials that I’ve never seen before. You’ll see them soon enough in our project page!

I use Clickup as my CRM, project management, and business management tool. It handles to-do lists, contact lists, questionnaires, and more. I chose it over Asana and other management software because it is infinitely customizable.

While there’s a lot to hate with the behemoth Autodesk and their subscription packages, I have grown to like Revit. It took years of dipping my toes in and retreating back to CAD before I finally went all in in 2021. Now working in CAD for older projects feels icky. Drawing revisions go much faster and I find myself catching conditions with modeling that could easily be missed when you are drawing it all yourself in 2d. Plus streamlining this and Enscape together in one model means faster and more accurate 3d renderings at any time in the design process. I went for the full version because you can’t run Enscape on Revit LT.